Beauty untouched by modern development

sir – Clive Aslet’s article about the charms of the English village, in which he praised the beauty of Lavenham – “with its wooden guildhall, built shortly after the foundation of the Guild of Corpus Christi in 1529” (Comment, February 20) – prompted me to take a book off the shelves.

Fifty-five years ago, Wilfred (later Sir Wilfred) Burns, who worked in Coventry before being appointed chief planning officer for Newcastle, wrote of East Anglia in New Towns for Old: “Here we have towns with old centres that are in very great need of redevelopment. Lavenham in West Suffolk has not developed since it was the prosperous centre of a woollen industry.”

How fortunate we are that Lavenham managed to keep Sir Wilfred at arm’s length.

Jeremy Archer

London SW18